In this essay we will look at Earnest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” as an example of his use of the minimalist technique, what that technique is, and what its overall effect has on the reader. What is minimalism and how did Hemingway use this technique in “Hills Like White Elephants”? The primary effect of Minimalism in modern prose is to place the control of the work back onto the reader. That is to say, the reader is forced to play an active or participatory role in both the visual and emotional aesthetic of the story. Whereas more vividly detailed works by authors such as Falkner and Joyce paint a picture and color in the details of character and setting for the reader, so that the reader becomes a passive viewer, Hemingway sets out to include the reader by using non-descript language with an extremely sparse use of adverbs and adjectives. In other words, what is not said becomes as important as what is said, and what is said is suggestive of so much more. Hemingway himself articulated this most cleverly when he “compared his method to the principle of the iceberg: ‘There is seven-eighths of it under water for every part that shows.’” (367). Hemingway’s description of the hills in the distance is extremely bare-boned. He gives us so little: “On this side there was no shade and no trees and the station was between two lines of rails in the sun.” (368) He never goes on to say what the other side looked like, leaving that up to the reader’s imagination, memory, and experience. Furthermore, the description he does set up tells only of what was not. “There was no shade and no trees…” What is a reader to make of this? In a minimalist work, the reader becomes, in a sense, another writer, using clues from the circumstances of the story and then putting them together based on personal experience, memory, and imagination. In this way, the reader is not counting on the writer to give a message or a...

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...In Hemingway's "HillsLikeWhiteElephants", he utilizes the audience in understanding the substance of his plot. He takes on a sense of truth by putting an intense amount of dialogue, thus giving a realistic type of writing. Through the usage of dialogue between the couple, it shows the depth of expectations. The audience must rely and fall back upon their own personal experience in order to interpret the conversation/plot. The correlation with nature plays into the language and the action of how the story flows. There is a definite split between the two different sides of the tracks. Basically, all that ties in with the hills represent life and that particular side of the tracks. It is a flash comparison of fertility versus barrenness by using language in description. Typical stereotype of the pensive, unsure female who has yet to step up and voice her opinions and speak her mind about her stance upon this pregnancy. Hemingway has truly taken on the modernist view. He completely takes out the third person narration and replaces the storytelling through dialogue. We are no longer aware of what is going on through the characters' minds and the emotions that overwhelm them. You no longer are sure of the characters' motives behind their actions and words. For the audience to an extent, we must be able to tell them apart through this alienation effect. There is a necessity to step back from he...

...Hemmingway's "HillsLikeWhiteElephants"
Ernest Hemmingway's "HillsLikeWhiteElephants" is not a story in the clasical
sense with an introduction, a development of the story, and an end. We only get some
time in the life of two people, as if it were just a piece of a film where we have a lot do
deduce. This story does not give everything done for the reader, we only see the
surface of what is going on. It leaves an open end, readers can have their own ending
and therefore take part in the story. A masterpiece of external narration, there seems
to be no focal point in the characters. One must only here what is said, not what is
thought by the two main characters, the American and Jig. Hemmingway's third person
narrator takes an objective position outside of the characters, thus providing a look from
an third person point of view.
The story told is that of a woman and a man during their trip to a place where
she can have an abortion. Everything in the tale is related to the idea of fertility and
barrenness. This main topic can been seen from the title, where "Hills" refer to the
shape of the pregnant belly, and "WhiteElephants" is an idiom that refers to useless or
unwanted things. In this case the unwanted thing is the unborn baby the couple is
awaiting to abort.
One can see that the story setting is...

...
Hemingway’sHillslikeWhiteElephants: Unease Conversation
What do you think about when you read the words “HillslikeWhiteElephants”? Ernest Hemingway was a handsome man that had everyone captivated by his 1927 short story “HillslikeWhiteElephants” .Hemingway writing was very important in the late 20th century. His writing was straight forwarded and brief. Nevertheless his literature, he was married 4 times with different woman. He would seemingly fall in love with much younger woman every time he divorce the others. Hemingway provides the sense of a personal experience through his dialogue and he symbolizes the setting of two extraordinary characters unease conversation.
“Hillslikewhiteelephants” by Ernest Hemingway is a story written in 3rd person omission. The story contains two characters “The American” and a girl named “Jig”. In the story the two are sitting in a station- bar waiting for the train to Madrid. While they are waiting they order drinks and they start to engage in an intense yet lightly conversation on whether she should or not have an abortion. The American simply wants her to get the operation done. The American keeps reassuring her nothing will change between them and that he will still love her...

...HILLSLIKEWHITEELEPHANTS 1
The Theme and Narrative Elements of “HillslikeWhiteElephants”.
Ashley Terreforte
Introduction to Literature
Instructor: Danielle Slaughter
April 1st, 2013
HILLSLIKEWHITEELEPHANTS 2
For this paper I have chosen to discuss the theme and narrative elements of the short story “HillslikeWhiteElephants”. In the short story “The HillslikeWhiteElephants”, just at first glance of the title it makes me think the story is going to be about something beautiful and something of admiration; because when I think of whiteelephants I think of something extremely beautiful and rare. When I actually read the story it turned out to be the complete opposite. So my goal for this paper is to explain what the theme of the story “HillslikeWhiteElephants” is and also to explain how the point of view, setting and symbolism in the story contribute to the stories theme.
Before even reading the story “HillsLikeWhiteElephants”, I thought the...

...and HillsLikeWhiteElephants by Ernest Hemmingway reflect the traditional gender roles of the late 1800’s, through the perspective of male dominance. In these stories the males predominates the females, and the characters seems to lack understanding, and communication towards another, which becomes the main cause of the females’ oppression.
The domination of the men in the lives of both women causes them to go through certain mental stages, from naïve views of their situations, to more complex realizations of their anxieties.
In the story The Yellow Wallpaper, the narrator begins her story naively listening to everything her husband tells her. She doesn’t realize that her illness is starting to worsen nor does she realize she is being oppressed. She says “congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good.” However, John, insists the complete opposite, saying she needs nothing but rest, but the narrator states that “personally, I disagree with their ideas” this did not stop her from doing exactly what the man told her to do. This shows that even though the narrator is aware of the problem, and if she goes against her own thoughts on the matter to listen to her husband, her condition will somehow improve.
In the beginning of HillsLikeWhiteElephants, Jig is as naïve as the woman from The Yellow Wallpaper. Jig also tries to believe everything...

...1. The story is narrated in the third person point of view. Aside from dialogue, the story does not use "I." Instead, it uses his name, or refers to the character as "him" or "he."
2. The story starts off as third person objective. It's first told as how someone would observe from afar. The narrator makes assumptions, such as in the first paragraph of part one, "It did not appear to be the duty of these two men to know what was occurring ." In the third paragraph, the narrator is describing the main character, but he makes it sound more as assumptions than fact.
In paragraph four, the point of view changes from being objective to third person omniscient limited. "He looked a moment " indicates that the narrator now knows what the character is thinking, what the character is looking at, etc. It continues to focuses on the thoughts of Peyton Farquhar; what he thought of as he looked at the water, how he thought of his family, and planned his escape.
The point of view changes again in part two to third person omniscient neutral. The narrator knows quite a bit about each character, and knows certain things that the average observer would not be able to observe. For example, the narrator knows how Peyton was feeling towards the war, and knew why he had not fought in the war. He also knew that the soldier that stopped for the water was a soldier from the north.
Then, in part three, the point of view reverts back to third person omniscient limited. And...

...‘HillslikeWhiteelephants’ by Ernest Hemingway revolves around a conversation between a girl and an American man. The story is written in simple sentences and when one reads the story one does not really notice the subtleties present. Hemingway’s iceberg theory is relevant to this story because though the story seems to be simply about a man and a woman having a causal conversation there are undertones of more serious and pressing issues. It is set at a train station in between Barcelona and Madrid. Hemingway does this on purpose in order to highlight the fact that the relationship between the American and the girl is at crossroads. Throughout the passage there is no explicit sign of conflict however there is a slight undercurrent of uncertainty and tension. The entire passage is written in third person, it is objective and just states the facts of the conversation without really giving the reader any background information about the situation or the characters. This is probably been done to maintain a sense of mystery. The title of the passage is also significant as ‘whiteelephants’ are symbolic of something that is unwanted and as the whole conversation between the American and woman revolves around whether to do an ‘operation’ or not to get rid of something that is supposedly an unborn baby, making the operation an abortion, this symbol is extremely important.
The...

...﻿Lê Thị Mỹ
Class 10CNA04
English – American Literature
Email: lethimy91@gmail.com
The Effect of Iceberg Theory in Earnest Hemingway’s
“HillsLikeWhiteElephants”
“If a writer of prose knows enough of what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader…will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them” [Earnest Hemingway]. That is the reason why Hemingway applies the “Iceberg Theory” in most of his works, which results in a strong connection between the writer and his readers. In “HillsLikeWhiteElephants”, such theory is well utilized to bring about a meaningful story through the use of detail omissions, symbols in dialogue, and symbolic description of scenes and characters.
Believing that subtext is more important in conveying the story’s underlying meaning, Hemingway omits every detail that directly expresses the true theme of the story. He does not mention the word “abortion” at any time during the conversation or in any of his narrative sentences; not even once does he use any nouns or verbs relating to babies or giving birth, let alone “abortion”. Readers may easily notice that the girl in the story has a name (Jig) while the man does not have one; he is simply called “the American man”. Besides, the ending is eliminated. What is the reason for all of these omissions? Because...